Nothing but Tetris/Nothing but Tetris.iso/menu.lha/IBMPC/MIXED2/ULTRIS12/ULTRIS.DOC

Text File | 1980-01-06 | 12KB | 314 lines

Ultris: The Ultimate Tetris
Version 1.2

(C) 1992 David Pritchard

Requires: EGA or VGA
Supports: 2 and 3 button Microsoft-compatible mice, AdLib (or compatible)
          sound card, 2 player simultaneous play (competitive and co-operative).


LICENSE
───────

You may use Ultris provided that you follow these conditions:

    1) All of the following files must be included:
            README.COM
            SETUP.EXE
            ULTRIS.DAT
            ULTRIS.DOC
        ULTRIS.EXE
        ULTRIS.ICO
            ULTRIS1.DAT
    2) None of these files may be modified.
    3) You may distribute Ultris, provided that you distribute the .ZIP
       file exactly as you received it, and as long as no charge over $5
       is made.

Please, distribute Ultris! Let everyone know about it!
    If you like this program, and would like to see future updates, send
$15 to:

    David Pritchard
    99 Woodmount Ave.
    Toronto, ON, Canada
    M4C 3Y3

Include any suggestions/comments. You can reach me on the following Toronto
BBSes: Stained Glass Window, Artsy Fartsy, and Super Sonic. Sorry, I don't
have the cash for BIX, Canada Remote Systems, or anything like that.



SETUP
─────

Ultris will automatically detect your hardware when you run it. Should its
auto-detection be incorrect, and the game not run, run the SETUP.EXE program,
which will let you configure Ultris from a menu.
    Should you wish to do so, you can modify the ULTRIS.INI file manually.
For more detail, see Appendix A: ULTRIS.INI.



RUNNING THE GAME
────────────────

To run the game, just run ULTRIS.EXE (for details on command-line parameters,
see Appendix B: Command line parameters). You should see, for 1.5 seconds, what
Ultris has detected as your configuration. Then, the program will show two
title screens, and it will then enter the game.
    If you do not have Ultris set up for a mouse, or if Ultris does not
detect a mouse, the left player will be using the keyboard, and the right player
will be using the keypad. If Ultris detects a mouse, the left player will be
using the keypad, and the right player will be using the mouse. This can be
changed either via SETUP.EXE or ULTRIS.INI.



KEYS
────

The keys for the Keyboard are:

               Raise Level
                  
        Rotate   ── U    I    O ──   Rotate / PgUp
                 Rotate   ───┐
            Move   ── J └ K    L ──   Move

                        M    ,    . ──   PgDn
                                 
                             Drop Brick

Space bar is the general action key, including pausing, starting, etc.

The keys for the Keypad are:

               Raise Level
                  
        Rotate   ── 7    8    9 ──   Rotate / PgUp
                 Rotate   ───┐
            Move   ── 4 └ 5    6 ──   Move

                        1    2    3 ──   PgDn
                                 
                             Drop Brick

Enter is the general action key.

For mouse, see the online help.

The quit key is Escape. F1 and F2 decrease and increase the volume. Sorry,
there is no boss key.



HOW TO PLAY
───────────

Your goal in Ultris is to make a solid horizontal line. To do so, you must move
and rotate the bricks until a line is made. When a line is made, it will
disappear, and everything above it will drop down. Every ten lines you make,
the level will go up, and the speed will increase.
    You gain points for the speed you play each brick. So, by dropping a
brick to the bottom, it will have been played faster, and you will gain extra
points. You will also gain points for the more lines you make at once. For
example, if you make four lines at once, you get more than four times the points
earned when you get one line.
    Also, you can see the next piece you'll get in the NEXT section. This
can enable you to plan your future moves.



COMPETITIVE GAMEPLAY
────────────────────

When you play Ultris in competitive mode, the two players are playing head-on-
head. Speed is essential. When one player makes two or more lines, an equal
number of lines will be inserted at the bottom of the other player's well──with
a few gaps in them, of course.
    In competitive mode, when one player pauses, both pause, as it would be
unfair for one player to be able to play while the other is absent. Also, when
one player dies, both games end. The winner is the player who has managed to
stay alive, while the loser is the player who died. It's still quite possible
for the losing player to have a higher score than the winning player.



CO-OPERATIVE GAMEPLAY
─────────────────────

In co-operative mode, you will see not only your brick, but a dark grey shadow
of the other player's brick. To really do well, you have to work together and
try to help each other (i.e. Yelling at the other player for taking the only
place where your piece could fit will not help. Instead, let them see how much
the game wrecks up because of this. Then you can just say "I told you so!").
    Your brick cannot move through the other player's brick unless you drop
it.
    Co-operative mode generally works like competitive mode, apart from the
general gameplay. Pausing will occur for both players. Both games end at the
same time.
    A note on points: The player who makes the line will get the points!
So, due credit will be given to the player who does the most work──or takes
advantage of the best opportunities...



Well, that's about it. The appendixes are all we have after this. Have fun!



APPENDIX A: ULTRIS.INI
──────────────────────

Ultris.Ini is organized like a Windows .Ini file. There are headings, enclosed
in brackets ([ ]), and settings under each heading. Ultris will ignore anything
it doesn't recognize in the .Ini file. If a heading or setting is missing,
Ultris will auto-detect it. The text parser is not case sensitive.
    This appendix will list each section, the settings in each section, and
what each setting can be set to.

[Video]
Driver=           This can be set to VGA, EGA, or Detect.

[Audio]
Driver=           This can be set to AdLib, Internal, or Detect.
Volume=           This must be set to a number between 0 and 100.

[High Scores]
Left Player=      This is the left player high score file.
Right Player=     This is the right player high score file.

[Devices]
Left Device=      This can be set to Keyboard, Keypad, Mouse, Mouse2, or Mouse3.
Right Device=     This can be set to Keyboard, Keypad, Mouse, Mouse2, or Mouse3.

    With the devices, note that Mouse is equivalent to detecting the mouse
type, while Mouse2 will use a two-button mouse and Mouse3 will use a three-
button mouse.



APPENDIX B: COMMAND LINE PARAMETERS
───────────────────────────────────

/ADLIB       Use AdLib
/EGA         Use EGA
/INTERNAL    Use Internal speaker
/LDEVICE=xxx Set left device (where xxx=Mouse, Keyboard, Keypad, Mouse2, or
             Mouse3)
/LSCORE=xxx  Set left score file (where xxx=filename)
/RDEVICE=xxx Set right device (where xxx=Mouse, Keyboard, Keypad, Mouse2, or
             Mouse3)
/RSCORE=xxx  Set right score file (where xxx=filename)
/VGA         Use VGA
/VOLUME=xxx  Set volume (where xxx=percentage from 0 to 100).



APPENDIX C: RELEASE HISTORY
───────────────────────────

Ultris 1.0:     July 17, 1992

    1) Competitive and regular gameplay.
    2) AdLib sound effects.
    3) EGA/VGA support.
    4) 2/3 button mouse support.
    5) Generally trashy documentation.

Ultris 1.1:    July 23, 1992

    1) Bug fix for competitive play (if one player made lines high up, the
       lines would appear high up on the other player's well).
    2) Lines inserted in other player's well in competitive mode now can
       contain more than one gap.
    3) Revised documentation.
    4) Improved README.COM: Home/End supported; no blink when PgUp used at
       top screen or PgDn used at bottom screen.
    5) Icon for Windows (ULTRIS.ICO).
    6) Co-operative game play.
    7) Bug fix for high score filename qualification: wouldn't work well
       with path names over 9 characters long.
    8) Bug fix for certain partially incompatible mouse drivers.

Ultris 1.2:    July 31, 1992

    1) Bug fix for cooperative play (if more than one line was made at a
       time, remnants were left on other player's side).
    2) Bug fix for cooperative play (if players were on different levels,
       bricks would be in different colours).
    3) Improved overall interface: button-oriented selection; easy to use
       with mouse.
    4) Bug fix for high scores (scores were reset when game was run again).
    5) Bug fix for mouse drivers with sensitivity settings.



APPENDIX D: WINDOWS
───────────────────

If you want to use this with Windows, remember the following:

    1) DON'T RUN IT IN A WINDOW!!! Sure, go ahead and try now, and you'll
       see why I'm saying this. First, the colours are totally messed up
       (Windows reverses light and dark grey). Second, Windows can't keep up
       with Ultris' demands for system resources (Ultris needs to be called
       18.2 times per second or so), so it's impossible to play.

    2) Ultris requires enough memory to be able to load the .EXE file,
       and then each of the .DAT files (although neither is in memory
       simultaneously). If you don't care about the title screens, you can
       forget about leaving memory for loading the .DAT files.

    3) Don't be surprised if it takes longer to start up from Windows. The
       game plays (generally) the same, but the start-up is slower.

    4) There's an icon file (ULTRIS.ICO) available for you.

    5) Windows 3.1 users with a sound card: try loading Media Player (or
       whatever music player you use) and starting to play a song before
       running Ultris. Make sure you run Ultris with the /INTERNAL switch.
       Ignore the error Windows gives you, and then you have background
       music with Ultris! Needless to say, this is not a good method for it.
       Maybe (with enough interest) in a future release? Besides, you're
       stuck with the horrible sound effects.

I generally can't recommend running Ultris from Windows. On the machines I've
tested, it's basically given me an idea of what running Ultris on an XT would
be like (I haven't found an XT with EGA or VGA yet).



APPENDIX E: NETWORKS
────────────────────

    SysOps! There are options here for you! For high scoring, you can change
the path for the high score file. Should you wish to allow each user to have
their own high score file, you can do this (either with the .INI file,
SETUP.EXE, or command-line parameters).
    If you specify NUL as the high score file name, Ultris just won't write
a high score file, so if you don't want the high scores saved, here's your
solution (Of course, it's neater if you just make Ultris.Hgh Read-Only).
    Running multiple copies of Ultris with one central high score file will
(generally) work, but you'll run into problems if a player spends too much time
at the ENTER YOUR NAME screen. Nothing (hopefully) fatal, but just to be safe...
to reset the high scores, delete the high score file (ULTRIS.HGH).



ABOUT THE AUTHOR
────────────────

I'm a 14-year old grade 10 student at Danforth Collegiate & Technical Institute.
Last year, myself, a student from Malvern, and another student from our school
came second in the Ontario high school programming contest. I still maintain
a +90% average, although I participate in approximately zero sports.
    Jonathan Shekter is a grade 11 student at DCTI. He made the finals in
the programming contest. His part in this game was the title screen: I drew it
up and made a file loader for it, but it took about 15 seconds to load the
screens, so Jonathan wrote a fast screen loader for it (in assembly language).
    The rest of this game was written in Turbo C++ 3.0.